Writing about my surf trips to Baja and the perfect food moments that those trips gave me, got me thinking about other perfect food moments. It’s funny, I didn’t realize I was having many of these moments until years later. In other words, I wasn’t TRULY aware how much a particular meal would mean to me while I was eating it. Oh, I knew it was a fabulous meal, but I didn’t know that I would look back and when I thought about that meal I would hear angels sing. Well this is true about all except for one. During this meal I was very aware that I was experiencing a bona fide perfect food moment. And no, angels weren’t singing, but an orchestra was playing and there were fireworks involved!

This meal happened in my twenties. I was a newlywed and still caught up in the bliss of calling a man, “My husband.” The marriage didn’t last, but the food memory did, go figure. We both worked at California Pizza Kitchen, me as a server, he as a manager. We had a rare evening off together and decided to take some food and wine and go to the Hollywood Bowl. For those of you that don’t know about the Hollywood Bowl, let me take a few moments to explain it. It is an outside venue that offers concerts all summer, everything from jazz to pop. You are allowed to bring food and wine in and most people do, I mean, really, a picnic under the stars? Yes, please. They have expensive box seats right by the stage and in those seats you can have a meal catered, but I always sat in the cheap seats. They were like the long bleacher seats you find when attending a high school football game, except they have an extra wide concourse in front of them, so you have room for all your goodies.

The evening my husband and I went, the L.A. Philharmonic was playing classical music. We decided to bring food from the restaurant, waters and a couple of bottles of Zinfandel. It was one of those perfect summer evenings in L.A. Not a cloud in the sky, warm enough that you didn’t need a jacket, but not so warm that you were sweating. We settled into our seats and began to unpack our food. We had a Caesar salad, a five cheese pizza, a roasted eggplant pizza, bread, ice-cold Evian (in the glass bottle!) and of course, the wine. We were opening the wine and setting out the food just as the music was starting. I can still remember the feel of the metal bleacher beneath me, the sound of the orchestra playing and that first sip of full-bodied Zinfandel. The music played on and we ate a garlicky, lemon bite of the Caesar paired with the smoky gouda on the five cheese pizza. I remember looking up and seeing all the stars and then looking at my husband next to me and I felt as if my heart would jump out of my chest. We shared the eggplant pizza. The eggplant was perfectly grilled and had a slight spicy element to it that accentuated the fruit in the wine perfectly. We were surrounded by people, but I felt as if it were just the two of us, picnicking with our own personal orchestra. It was at this point, with my first large drink of that ice-cold Evian that I thought to myself, “I must remember this!” I was almost frantic with the thought of it and started to hyper-consciously take every moment (and bite) and commit it to memory.

And I did. I often think about this evening and when I do I am transported back to that moment, I can hear the music, feel the warm breeze coming down the Hollywood hills and taste every bite of the meal we shared under the stars. It truly was a magical moment and I’m glad that I was aware of the magic as it was happening. The fireworks? They ended the concert with a fireworks display. Talk about serendipitous!